Zari Adrianna Tarazi (history_hacker) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2020-08-28 20:14:00 |
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Entry tags: | !closed, !completed gdoc, alec lightwood (graceinthefight), ~2020 august, ~~zari tomaz (history_hacker) |
Who: Zari Tomaz and Alec Lightwood
What: Donuts!
Where: Horst's Little Bakery Haus
When: Sometime last week
Warning: Low
Status: Closed/Completed Gdoc
Zari was in the mood for donuts. That was nothing new. She always had time for them. Today was a little different, though. She didn't want to have donuts alone. She actually wanted company. So she texted Alec and told him to meet here at the bakery. If he wanted to, of course. Of all the friends she had here, he was the one who really understood her love of the sugary, baked things. It's how they met...and he ate some on her behalf during Ramadan. That was true friendship right there.
She ordered a box of assorted donuts, found an empty table, and waited for Alec to arrive. She looked forward to catching up with her friend. He had become one of her closest friends here, and that was not a bad thing at all. Zari was capable of enjoying the company of her friends. She had grown a lot since joining the Legends and from her time in Madison Valley.
***
Alec didn’t have many friends in town -- but he was okay with that. Anymore, it was because of the dome and its whims. People he cared about tended to get tossed back home after a while. His friends were pretty much just Lissa, Lucy, and Zari at this point. Well, and Alex Manes, because really. Have a kid with a stranger and sometimes that’s a bond that doesn’t go away.
Stranger things had happened in town, anyway.
Zari was one of the people he’d always make time for unless he absolutely couldn’t, which meant that of course he was showing up. “Hey,” he greeted with a smile as he took a seat across from her.
***
"Glad you could make it," Zari said, and she truly meant it. "I got a whole box. Would be sad if I ate this alone."
And it was something she absolutely had done before. The sugar rush was no joke.
"Mostly, I thought it would be good to catch up. We haven't done this in awhile."
***
“No, we haven’t,” he agreed. “And there’s no way I’d let you eat a whole box of donuts by yourself, thank you very much. Not unless they’re sadness donuts because something really bad happened. Then I think I’d be obligated to let you eat the entire box by yourself. Pretty sure that’s in the Friendship Code.”
His jokes weren’t always the best, but at least now he had a sense of humor. Before, not so much. He owed it to some of the people he’d known over the years and to his sister. Well, more like he blamed his sister.
But they were siblings, so it was the same thing.
***
“These are not sadness donuts. They are ‘I’m in a good mood and want to share’ donuts,” Zari said with a slight grin. “Though believe me, sadness donuts have been a thing.”
Oh boy have they been. After some of the crap she’d seen and been through, donuts were a refuge in some ways. But, they were also for celebration...or just wanting to meet up with a friend.
“I do like these Friendship Code rules,” she continued. “I’ll have to create a handy guide. Or something. The Rules of Donut Consumption. Totally something I’d read, at least.”
***
Alec laughed. “The Rules of Donut Consumption are absolutely part of the Friendship Code,” he said. “They’re, like, the second article, I think. At least, they are if you let us write this.”
He didn’t always relax easily around people -- one of those things from his Shadowhunter training that he’d probably never shake, combined with his natural personality -- but there’d been people in town over the years that were easy to relax around. Zari was one of them.
This wasn’t Alec relaxing, though, this was Alec being almost downright silly.
***
Zari didn’t often get a chance to be silly, either. When she did, she embraced it. It felt good to be happy. She got to be that here in Madison Valley. It was amazing how she could adapt and make her own family and friends wherever she went.
“It’s definitely high on the list of rules,” she continued, taking a bite of one of the glazed donuts.
“So, how have you been, anyway?” she asked, not caring that she had a mouth full of donut.
She was sure Alec didn’t care, either.
***
He absolutely didn’t care. That was precisely the sort of thing you didn’t care about when you were being silly.
“Not bad,” he said honestly. “Life’s been quiet for me -- work and Guardian duty, mostly. But it’s been the good kind of quiet, I haven’t been hiding from people. I promise.”
Because that was usually one of the first things people thought when he said what he’d said.
***
“I haven’t been hiding too much either,” Zari replied with a genuinely content smile. “It hasn’t been terrible. Quiet is also not bad. Of course, we shouldn’t keep talking about that while the dome is listening.”
She chuckled as she said that, though she knew just how right she was when it came to dome shenanigans. It did seem to always know.
“I’m glad we can get together like this, that we don’t always have to hide.”
She liked that they could all be themselves here.
***
He couldn’t agree more. “This place is just about the friendliest place I’ve ever been.” And he wasn’t even talking about the people, either -- though they were, by and large, friendly.
No, he was talking about the place itself. It was a place where people could have the lives they wanted -- in some cases, needed -- to have. The kind of place that a number of people wanted to be.
It was a place he was happy to be.
***
“Probably the nicest place I’ve been to as well,” Zari said, nodding in agreement. The Waverider was nice, too, but they weren’t always in the best situations. Though really, the same could be said about Madison Valley, especially when the dome was bored.
“Now, pick a donut,” she instructed. “Before I eat them all.”
***
“Okay, okay, fine,” he said, laughing as he reached out to take a donut. “Sheesh, bossy much?”
He wouldn’t have this moment any other way, though; hanging out with friends was one of those things he’d never really gotten to do back home -- certainly not like this -- and it was something he was always going to treasure.
Especially with Zari.